Investments in pastoralism offer best hope for combating droughts in East Africa’s drylands–Study

Posted on August 24, 2011 by Susan MacMillan

Camels walk from Somalia to Nairobi, Kenya (photo on Flickr by Matteo Angelino).

As hunger spreads among more than 12 million people in the Horn of Africa, a study by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) of the response to Kenya’s last devastating drought, in 2008–2009, finds that investments aimed at increasing the mobility of livestock herders—a way of life often viewed as ‘backward’ despite being one of the most economical and productive uses of Kenya’s drylands—could be key to averting future food crises in arid lands.

The report, An Assessment of the Response to the 2008–2009 Drought in Kenya, suggests that herding makes better economic sense than crop agriculture in many of the arid and semi-arid lands that constitute 80 per cent of the Horn of Africa, and supporting mobile livestock herding communities in advance and with timely interventions can help people cope the next time drought threatens.

The authors say that recommending that most livestock herders switch to farming crops or move to cities is simply unrealistic in this region’s great drylands, which will not support row crops without extensive irrigation, which is scarce and often impractical. An estimated 70 million people live in these drylands, and many of them are herders. In Kenya, the value of the pastoral livestock sector is estimated to be worth USD800 million. And the Intergovernmental Authority on Development in Eastern Africa, which takes a regional approach to combating drought in six countries of the Horn, estimates that over 90 per cent of the meat consumed in East Africa comes from pastoral herds.

Drylands in the Horn of Africa are too large to ignore,” says Jan de Leeuw, an ecologist at ILRI and a lead author of the drought report. “With only 20 per cent of Kenya’s land suitable for arable crop production, and with an expanding population, the country cannot continue ignoring these dry areas without hurting people’s food production and livelihoods. Some of the worst impacts of the drought can be avoided if the region’s dryland livestock systems are well regulated.”

The best way to prevent famine in arid lands is to ensure herder access to critical dry-season grazing and watering areas. All the herders interviewed in this research assessment reported that obstacles to the movement of their herds—caused by lack of roads, land conflicts and demographic pressures—constituted the largest problem they had in protecting their animals and livelihoods.

Thus, the ILRI study findings reinforce what others have found—that migratory herding is the most productive use of much of this land.

A second major problem was a dearth of functioning commercial livestock markets. Destocking—where herders sell off those animals they can no longer feed or water to the government—does not work where there are no dynamic livestock markets. Thus, during droughts, it is more helpful for local government agencies to organize the slaughter of excess cattle on site—paying herders for the fresh meat, and giving the meat to the local herding communities to consume—than it is to ship large amounts of hay or other fodder to drought-struck areas, or to try to transport cattle out of such areas.

The authors found that investments such as better roads, markets, information access, agricultural outreach and schemes that pay herders for wildlife conservation and other ecological services may cost money in the short run, but in the longer term will help stabilize dryland communities and prevent famines.

In general, the ILRI report found that the response to the 2008–2009 drought, while better than that for a major drought a decade earlier, was still too little, too late.

The report was funded by the European Union to help Kenya improve its drought management system. Since 1996, with support from the World Bank and the European Union, the country has been moving to improve drought management through a national arid lands management program. Still, the 2008–2009 drought was devastating; more than half of all livestock died in many districts. The loss of livestock assets in successive droughts has had the effect of steadily impoverishing many herders in Kenya and other countries of the Horn of Africa.

To harvest the economic and other potential of Kenya’s drylands, we need new approaches and effective models for managing risk and promoting sustainable development, especially in the face of climate change and increasing droughts in many areas, said de Leeuw. Investments in pastoral livestock systems and markets, and in transportation, communication and energy infrastructure, is vital, he said.

The best way to tap into the potential of the drylands is to invest in systems that support pastoral livelihoods, rather than ignoring them and hoping they go away,’ said de Leeuw. ‘While such investments are risky, these areas support most of the animal protein consumed by the residents of the Horn countries.’

Unfortunately, however, drylands and the pastoral livelihoods they support have long borne the brunt of underdevelopment, underinvestment and ineffective government policies that have tended to encourage mobile herders to transit into more settled ways of life. Many dryland regions lack the infrastructure and services that would help people cope with the hazards of climate change, variable rainfall and droughts. These and other factors are partly responsible for the Horn’s recurrent hunger crises.

Furthermore, high population growth is putting pressure on agricultural farmland and urban centers in the Horn of Africa. More people (including non-pastoralists) are settling the drylands, as they are the frontier for agricultural expansion, said Polly Ericksen, another co-author of the ILRI paper. ‘The resulting sub-division and development of communal lands raises concerns about the management of Africa’s drylands, highlighting the need for national policies on how such lands are used.’

One successful national program, for example, helps provide income to pastoralists, while at the same time preserving the ecosystems. Kenyans herders who live near the country’s protected wildlife areas are receiving payments for managing their ecosystems, and these payments are providing a stable, reliable and predictable source of income that both reduces poverty and protects wildlife.

Such ecosystem protection efforts are going on in the Masai Mara region of southern Kenya and in the Kitengela rangelands near Nairobi, where Maasai people have formed ‘eco-conservancies’ to protect their grazing areas for livestock and wildlife alike.

Read more about the ILRI drought assessment on the ILRI News Blog: Best ways to manage responses to recurring drought in East Africa’s drylands, 7 Aug 2011.

American researchers publish timely book on East African pastoralism: ‘Build on–don’t replace–the region’s livestock economies’

Posted on August 12, 2011 by Susan MacMillan

Peter Little, co-author of the timely new publication, Risk and Social Change in an African Rural Economy: Livelihoods in Pastoralist Communities, and leader of a recent review of ILRI’s pastoral research (photo credit: Emory University).

Risk and Social Change in an African Rural Economy: Livelihoods in Pastoralist Communities is a new book published by research partners John McPeak and Peter Little, of a Livestock-Climate Change initiative of the Collaborative Research Support Program (Livestock-CC-CRSP).

The book summarizes the results of a multi-year interdisciplinary research project in pastoral areas of Kenya and Ethiopia. The authors describe the ecology and social context in which pastoralism takes place, with a particular focus on the risks that confront people living in these drylands, and how these risks are often triggered by highly variable rainfall conditions, a symptom of climate change.

The authors go on to describe the livelihood strategies employed by pastoralists in these areas, with a focus on how well-being is tied to access to livestock and the cash economy. They conclude that the future development activities need to be built on the foundation of the livestock economy, instead of seeking to replace it.

Those wanting expert advice on how to help pastoralists suffering from a great drought afflicting the Horn of Africa today either to rebuild their shattered lives when the next rains come or to help them prevent such a catastrophe from occurring again in this region will profit from reading this book, which concludes with how development activities ‘are assessed by people in the area and what activities they prioritize for the future.’

John McPeak is an associate professor and vice-chair in the Department of Public Administration in the Maxwell School of Syracuse University; he is a member of a Livestock-CC-CRSP project in Mali and leads another project in Senegal. Peter Little is professor of anthropology and director of a Program in Development Studies at Emory University and leads a Livestock-CC-CRSP project in Ethiopia and Kenya. This project is known as CHAINS, which stands for ‘Climate variability, pastoralism, and commodity chains in Ethiopia and Kenya.’ The CRSP initiatives are funded by the United States Agency for International Development.

Co-author Peter Little headed a recent review of pastoral research at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), based in Nairobi, Kenya, and Addis ababa, Ethiopia, two countries whose dryland pastoralists are suffering from the current drought in the Horn of Africa. Little concurs with many others when he says that, ‘The famine in Somalia is an unfortunate intersection of failed rain, politics and conflict.’

The following is a description of the book from Routledge.

‘Pastoralists’ role in contemporary Africa typically goes underappreciated and misunderstood by development agencies, external observers, and policymakers.

Yet arid and semi-arid lands, which are used predominantly for extensive livestock grazing, comprise nearly half of the continent’s land mass, while a substantial proportion of national economies are based on pastoralist activities.

‘Pastoralists use these drylands to generate income for themselves through the use of livestock and for the coffers of national trade and revenue agencies. They are frequently among the continent’s most contested and lawless regions, providing sanctuary to armed rebel groups and exposing residents to widespread insecurity and destructive violence.

The continent’s millions of pastoralists thus inhabit some of Africa’s harshest and most remote, but also most ecologically, economically, and politically important regions.

‘This study summarizes the findings of a multi-year interdisciplinary research project in pastoral areas of Kenya and Ethiopia. The cultures and ecology of these areas are described, with a particular focus on the myriad risks that confront people living in these drylands, and how these risks are often triggered by highly variable rainfall conditions. The authors examine the markets used by residents of these areas to sell livestock and livestock products and purchase consumer goods before turning to an analysis of evolving livelihood strategies. Furthermore, they focus on how well-being is conditioned upon access to livestock and access to the cash economy, gender patterns within households and the history of development activities in the area. The book concludes with a report on how these activities are assessed by people in the area and what activities they prioritize for the future.

‘Policy in pastoral areas is often formulated on the basis of assumptions and stereotypes, without adequate empirical foundations. This book provides evidence on livelihood strategies being followed in pastoral areas, and investigates patterns in decision making and well being. It indicates the importance of livestock to the livelihoods of people in these areas, and identifies the critical and widespread importance of access to the cash economy, concluding that future development activities need to be built on the foundation of the livestock economy, instead of seeking to replace it.’

Get the book—Risk and Social Change in an African Rural Economy: Livelihoods in Pastoralist Communities, by John G McPeak, Peter D Little, Cheryl R Doss, published 28 Jul 2011, by Routledge, 206 pages—from Routledge online.

Best ways to manage responses to recurring drought in Kenya’s drylands

Posted on August 7, 2011 by Susan MacMillan

The carcass of a cow that died of starvation in the Kitengela rangelands, near Nairobi National Park, in the great drought of 2009 (photo on Flickr by Jeff Haskins).

Those working to mitigate the impacts of the current drought in the Horn of Africa and to help prevent severe hunger and starvation from occurring here in future will profit from a close reading of a 2010 report by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). This report—An Assessment of the Response to the 2008–2009 Drought in Kenya: A Report commissioned by the European Delegation to the Republic of Kenya—reviews the effectiveness of livestock-based drought response interventions during Kenya’s devastating 2008–2009 drought and suggests ways to improve the current drought management system and to incorporate climate change adaptation strategies into the country’s drought management policies.

Major findings of the report

The overriding importance of mobility
Without a single exception, all pastoralist groups interviewed consider mobility and access to natural resources as the most potent mechanism for coping with drought. Ironically, this is also the activity that is increasingly the most impeded. Interventions that facilitate and/or maintain critical migratory movement and/or allow access to unused grazing areas will continue to serve as the most powerful way to mitigate livestock losses during a drought. Often the funds required to achieve this are minimal compared to other interventions and as such it is also the most cost-effective intervention. Interventions targeting the removal of restrictions to mobility and access should be considered as prime activities during preparedness.

The importance of functioning livestock markets
Participants of a one-day workshop on commercial destocking in Marsabit District said that a successful commercial de-stocking intervention is next to impossible if the district does not already have a functioning, fully fledged, dynamic livestock trade as an ongoing activity during ‘normal’ times. ‘Emergency’ commercial de-stocking, they said, should in that case not be necessary because the commercial sector, if functioning, should be capable to up-scale its activity if and when there appeared a drought-related market surplus of stock.

Drought responses are falling behind
Although the drought responses presented here appear to be more effective and timely than responses to earlier droughts, these recent responses are not keeping up with an ongoing decline in many pastoral households in livestock assets and coping capacities. Furthermore, poor governance, lack of political will and mismanagement of funds plague efforts to move from relief responses to longer term development interventions. And conflicts over land, closely linked to a rapid population growth in Kenya, remain largely unresolved, with indications that these conflicts are only increasing and severely restricting pastoral mobility.

Lack of involvement of local communities
Local communities were not involved in the design and implementation of most interventions to help them cope with the drought. The single community to be consulted was in Laikipia, and that consultation was restricted to just one topic: livestock off-take. A Kajiado Naserian community that wanted support with finding alternative livelihoods so that it could stop relying on relief food actually found a goat distribution project that involved the community to be more successful than any relief interventions. Another community, in Isiolo’s Merti location, prefers a viable livestock market to any government-funded livestock off-take program and sees investments in pasture management as one way to solve the feed problems during drought.

Lessons learned
The good news
Increased semi-permanent presence of key non-governmental organizations in critical areas that are able to encompass a realistic drought management cycle approach has substantially improved information and speed of response. This, in combination with improved collaboration between agencies, together with improved coordination has at face value improved both the quality and timeliness of responses to droughts. The continued implementation of a basket of suitable preparedness activities remains the most cost-effective approach to reduce the impact of shocks. Activities such as those implemented by a regional ‘Drought Preparedness’ program of the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid department (ECHO) and a project on ‘Enhanced Livelihoods in the Mandera Triangle’ funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) are beginning to show a marked impact.

The bad news
But this good news is largely negated by other factors, such as reduced line ministry capacity, administrative/institutional changes such as the relentless creation of new districts, and conflicts. In some arid districts and in overall humanitarian terms, drought emergencies are no longer caused solely by prolonged periods of rainfall deficit; rather, such emergencies are increasingly provoked by many factors acting in concert, with the most important contributing factor being reduced access to high-potential grazing lands. This situation is itself caused, and heavily exacerbated, by a relentlessly increasing demographic pressure that is creating whole populations with scarce access to any animal resources at all. These dryland communities are left highly vulnerable to shocks.

Other major findings

• The problems underlying dryland livestock-based livelihoods cannot be solved by relief interventions alone; their solutions require long-term research and development strategies and programs that build on and strengthen rather than undermine local institution, livelihood strategies and coping strategies.

• Population growth and the continued and unplanned creation of settlements without access to permanent water continue to put a huge burden on humanitarian sources during a drought.

• Communities found corruption and mismanagement to be bigger problems than ineffective interventions.

• A Livestock Emergency Guidelines and Standards (LEGS, 2009) handbook, summarizing livestock-specific interventions, is an excellent toolkit supporting relief practitioners, but much remains to be improved regarding the appropriate timing of such interventions.

• The lack of a coordinated approach in, and access to, reliable livestock statistics, both numerical and distribution wise, remains a huge constraint in the overall management of Kenya’s arid and semi-arid lands.

• To prevent delays in the release of emergency funds, drought contingency plans should be regularly updated and contain agreed-upon quantitative triggers for the release of funds to implement interventions and creation of a sufficiently endowed national drought contingency fund deserves the highest priority.

About the report
In late 2009, at the conclusion of Kenya’s 2008–2009 drought, the European Union delegation funded this review of responses to the drought to help Kenya improve its drought management system by recommending more appropriate, effective and timely livestock-based interventions. The report begins by characterizing the severity of the two-year drought and assessing how well its impacts were forecasted. It then reviews 474 livestock-based interventions carried out during the 2008–2009 drought in six arid and semi-arid districts in Kenya. It recommends which livestock-related interventions to implement during drought (including specific advice on commercial destocking) and provides a checklist of advised livestock-based interventions for different scenarios. It offers guidelines for effective monitoring and evaluation. And it identifies where the drought response intervention cycle is hampered by policy constraints and how these might be addressed.

About drought in Kenya
Drought is the prime recurrent natural disaster in Kenya. It affects 10 million, mostly livestock-dependent, people in the country’s arid and semi-arid lands; remarkably, these non-arable lands cover more than 80 per cent of the country’s land mass. While reducing the country’s economic performance, recurring droughts particularly erode the assets of the poor, who herd cattle, camels, sheep, goats over the more marginal drylands. This regular erosion of animal assets is undermining the livelihoods of Kenya’s pastoral herding communities, provoking many households into a downward spiral of chronic hunger and severe poverty.

About Kenya’s drought management system
Since 1996, the Office of the President in Kenya, supported by the World Bank, has been implementing an Arid Lands Resource Management Project (ALRMP) in the country’s drought-prone and marginalized communities. The ALRMP, further supported by the European Union, funded a Drought Management Initiative and consolidated a national drought management system with structures at the national (Kenya Food Security Meeting, Kenya Food Security Steering Group), district (District Steering Group) and community levels. This drought management system includes policies and strategies, an early warning system, a funded contingency plan and an overall drought coordination and response structure. The main stakeholders involved, in addition to the Government of Kenya and its line ministries, are various development partners and non-governmental organizations. The most far-reaching changes to Kenya’s drought management system since its inception are now under way and include major institutional changes through the creation of a Drought Management Authority and a National Drought Contingency Fund.

About the drought of 2008–2009
The results of this study confirm that the 2008–2009 drought was extreme not only in meteorological and rangeland production terms, but also in terms of its devastating impacts on livestock resources. It is estimated that some 57 per cent of cattle and 65 per cent of sheep, for example, perished in Samburu Central District in 2009; in Laikipia North District, it is reported that 64 per cent of the cattle and 62 per cent of the sheep died over the 2008–2009 period. (Note that these estimates, being mostly subjective, give more of an impression than a reliable estimate of the impacts of the drought on Kenya’s livestock populations.)

What’s in this report?
Chapter 3 provides a general characterization of Kenya’s 2008/2009 drought. Chapter 4, assesses the drought responses in six arid and semi-arid districts of Kenya (Kajiado, Isiolo, Samburu, Laikipia, Turkana and Marsabit), incorporating feedback from a variety of stakeholders at district and national levels. Chapter 5 provides a checklist for drought-response scenarios; Chapter 6, guidelines for monitoring and evaluating responses to drought; and Chapter 7, a plan for commercial destocking in one of these districts. Chapter 8 summarizes climate change forecasts for Kenya and assesses the need for incorporating climate change adaptation policies into the country’s drought management strategies. Chapter 9 discusses the implications of the findings and makes recommendations. Chapter 10 distils lessons learned. This report is similar to an evaluation of responses to the 2000/2001 drought in Kenya (by Y Aklilu and M Wekesa) and reviews to what extent their recommendations were effectively implemented.

The report’s findings in a nutshell
The number of livestock interventions made increased dramatically between the 2000/2001 and 2008/2009 droughts. The total expenditure was also greater in 2008/2009 (USD4.6 million for 6 districts) than in 2000/20001 (USD4 million in 10 districts). ALRMP and the Kenya Government were the main funders of the efforts. Unfortunately, most livestock-related interventions began very late, in early to mid 2009, well past the optimal timing closer to the onset of the drought, in mid-2008. The ALRMP interventions started earliest, reportedly because it was the only organization with funds readily available through its Drought Contingency mode, when the drought became apparent to all. A total of more than 1.5 million people benefited directly from the interventions made in 2008/2009. The cost per individual reached was Kshs3,362, ranging from Kshs163 for water trucking to Kshs8,652 for emergency destocking. An estimated 15,873 tropical livestock units were purchased as part of emergency off-take. Over 5.7 million animals were reached by health interventions between July 2008 and December 2009. Over 1.5 million people were reached by interventions, 413,802 with traditional livestock interventions (destocking, animal health and feeds).

Practical lessons learned

Lesson 1
The most effective interventions were those that facilitated access to under-utilized grazing and watering resources. Those districts in Kenya with little new access to these natural resources are the most vulnerable.

Lesson 2
So-called ‘commercial de-stocking’ remains the least cost-effective drought intervention in Kenya. Long distances to markets, poor timing of interventions and lack of economies of scale all play important roles in making this kind of de-stocking unviable. But more than anything else, lack of an existing dynamic marketing system virtually precludes a commercial de-stocking operation from being cost-effective.

Lesson 3
‘Livestock-fodder-aid’ comes a close second in terms of poor cost-effectiveness. Shipping substantial quantities of bulky commodities such as hay to remote locations is extremely costly and moreover has had little if any measurable impact.

Lesson 4
Slaughter off-take, preferably carried out on the spot, with the meat distributed rapidly to needy families, is a popular intervention with beneficiaries and can provide substantial benefits. Those that sell a live animal often benefit also from the distribution of its meat. And the availability of this high-protein food can benefit household nutrition while allowing the selling households to maintain a little purchasing power a little longer.

More specific findings

• The number of livestock-related interventions and the funding associated with these both increased considerably over the interventions carried out during the last drought in Kenya, in 2000/2001.

• Once established, risk management systems tend to become static, but effective risk-management systems need to be adaptive and to build in mechanisms for people to ‘learn’.

• Few interventions were made by mid-2008, when the drought was already apparent. Early interventions are preferable as they are more effective. Yet 63 per cent of all interventions, and all destocking programs, were conducted after June 2009, when the drought was at its peak.

• Centrally managed interventions from Nairobi, such as the provision of fodder and the Ministry of Livestock Development-funded market off-take through the Kenya Meat Commission, had little impact and would have been many times more effective if funds had been made available through Drought Management Structures. (Considerable harm was done when publicized sales of stock never materialized, with large numbers of the animals herded to specified collection points suffering horribly and dying for lack of water and fodder.)

• Unmanaged resource-related conflicts among ethnic groups were reported to be a major constraint to an equitable use of the diminishing natural resource base.

• Bringing in water with tankers, maintaining and developing boreholes and destocking by slaughter in the affected areas were generally considered to be the most effective interventions. Most ‘other water’ and animal feeding interventions were considered ineffective.

• Being more effective is not simply a question of spending more money; significant gains can be made by improving the way current resources are spent. (Across all types of interventions, no significant relationship was found between the effectiveness of a given intervention and its cost per individual reached.)

• The problems of many unsuccessful interventions, such as animal feed and health, were due largely to inefficiency of implementation and/or poor timing.

• A third more animals were moved in 2008/2009 than in 2000/2001. As disease killed many of the animals that migrated, animal health interventions should be included in future migration strategies.

• Hay provisioning, which when well done might be an appropriate intervention, was generally too late and too little to have any significant impact on supporting animal herds through the drought.

• Apart from Turkana and Samburu districts, no information on livestock marketing was disseminated or off-take exercises publicized, resulting in late off-takes and a greater expenditure of resources for off-take during the emergency stage than during the alert/alarm stage.

• Bulletins put out by EWS (Early Warning Systems) provide overly generalized information, with no specific livestock focus, making the information inappropriate for livestock interventions. The information also often appears late, is too generic for district-specific interventions, and defines no thresholds for the release of contingency funds.

• A lack of publicly available near-real-time and historic rainfall data hampered the real time analysis of rainfall anomalies. From a timeliness perspective, rainfall data is the most appropriate source of information for early warning, as it allows the longest response time to scale up relief operations. A number of organizational issues in the hands of government could improve this situation.

• Analysis of monthly vegetation greenness anomalies does not appropriately reveal rangeland drought conditions relevant for livestock, as livestock manages to cope with shorter periods of reduced forage availability. A twelve-month running average of NDVI (normalized difference vegetation index) detected historic droughts much more precisely, indicating the usefulness of running average techniques for rangeland early warning purposes.

• Satellite imagery allows near real time to screen opportunities for migration and identify for remedial conflict resolution in areas of high insecurity.

• The reporting on livestock body condition, milk production and productivity proved to be inconsistent across districts, frequently incomplete and with units of measurement unspecified, indicating the need to harmonize the collection of livestock statistics.

Read ILRI’s whole report: An assessment of the response to the 2008–2009 drought in Kenya: A report to the European Union Delegation to the Republic of Kenya, 2010, by Lammert Zwaagstra, Zahra Sharif, Ayago Wambile, Jan de Leeuw, Mohamed Said, Nancy Johnson, Jemimah Njuki, Polly Ericksen and Mario Herrero.

* * *

Read an earlier ILRI News blog on this report: Livestock-based research recommendations for better managing drought in Kenya, 18 Jul 2011.

Three other recent ILRI research reports, published since that above, also assess the effectiveness of past drought interventions in Kenya’s northern drylands and offer tools for better management of the region’s drought cycles.

(1) ILRI research charts ways to better livestock-related drought interventions in Kenya’s drylands. ILRI Policy Brief (this is a distillation of recommendations in the report above), Jul 2011, by Jan de Leeuw, Polly Ericksen, Jane Gitau, Lammert Zwaagstra and Susan MacMillan

(2) The impacts of the Arid Lands Resource Management Project (ALRMPII) on livelihoods and vulnerability in the arid and semi-arid lands of Kenya. ILRI Research Report 25, 2011, edited by Nancy Johnson and Ayago Wambile.

This study assesses the impacts of the Arid Lands Resource Management Project (ALRMPII), a community-based drought management initiative implemented in 28 arid and semi-arid districts in Kenya from 2003 to 2010 to improve the effectiveness of emergency drought response while at the same time reducing vulnerability, empowering local communities, and raising the profile of ASALs in national policies and institutions.

(3) Livestock drought management tool. Final report for a project submitted by ILRI to the FAO Sub-Regional Emergency and Rehabilitation Officer for East and Central Africa, 10 Dec 2010, by Polly Ericksen, Jan de Leeuw and Carlos Quiros.

In August 2010, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) sub-Regional Emergency Office for Eastern and Central Africa contracted ILRI to develop a prototype livestock drought management decision support tool for use by a range of emergency and relief planners and practitioners throughout the region. The tool, which is still conceptual rather than operational, links the concepts of ‘drought cycle management’ with best practice in livestock-related interventions throughout all phases of a drought, from normal through the alert and emergency stages to recovery. The tool uses data to indicate the severity of the drought (hazard) and the ability of livestock to survive the drought (sensitivity). The hazard data has currently been parameterized for Kenya, but can be used in any countries of East and Central Africa. The tool still lacks good-quality data for sensitivity and requires pilot testing in a few local areas before it can be rolled out.

Pastoral mobility is not a problem to be eliminated–It’s a trump card to be strengthened–CAPRi

Posted on August 2, 2011 by Susan MacMillan

Above and below: Illustrations from a chapter on ‘Managing Mobility in African Rangelands,’ in a book, Resources, Rights and Cooperation: A Sourcebook on Property Rights and Collective Action for Sustainable Development, published in 2010 by the International Food Policy Research Institute for the CGIAR Systemwide Program on Collective Action and Property Rights (CAPRi); ILRI scientist Nancy Johnson was one of four members of the production team for this book (illustration credit: IFPRI).

In a commentary in Today Online, the American economist Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and special adviser to United Nations Secretary-General on the Millennium Development Goals, argues for policies that support rather than hamper the movements of livestock herders in the drought- and hunger-stricken Horn of Africa.

‘The rains have failed for two years running in the dry regions of East Africa. These are places where water is so scarce year after year that crop production is marginal at best. Millions of households, with tens of millions of nomadic or semi-nomadic people, tend camels, sheep, goats and other livestock, which they move large distances to reach rain-fed pasturelands. . . . The location of life-supporting pasturelands is determined by the unstable and largely unpredictable rains, rather than by political boundaries. Yet we live in an era when political boundaries, not the lives of nomadic pastoralists, are sacrosanct. These boundaries, together with growing populations of sedentary farmers, have hemmed in pastoralist communities. . . .’

Nancy Johnson, a scientist with the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Maryam Niamir-Fuller and other authors explore the merits of pastoral mobility in a chapter of a book, Resources, Rights and Cooperation, which is a sourcebook on property rights and collective action for sustainable development. The source for their material is a CAPRi research brief published in 2005 by Maryam Niamir-Fuller (see below).

As this chapter reports:

‘In arid and semi-arid lands in Africa, pastoralists manage uncertainty and risk and access a range of markets through livestock mobility. Mobility enables opportunistic use of resources and helps minimize the effects of droughts. . . .

‘Undergrazing of remote pastures or in protected areas can lead to the invasion of unpalatable plants, lower vegetation cover, and lower diversity of plants, and can sometimes be a more serious problem than overgrazing. . . .

‘The scale and magnitude of persistent environmental decline in dryland Africa—and how livestock grazing has affected such changes—appear to have been overestimated. . . .

‘Mobile pastoral systems also appear to be more economically efficient than their sedentary counterparts or commercial ranching. . . .

Government policies have upset the economic balance between crops and livestock by favoring crops and agricultural encroachment onto rangelands. Governments have discouraged investments in the range and livestock sector and claimed “vacant” pastoral land for national parks and government-owned farms.

‘Projects in Africa have long sought to develop livestock productivity rather than enhance livelihoods. Drawing on the classical ranching model from the United States, interventions encouraged sedentarization, destocking, and water development. However, they did not increase livestock productivity, and some were very destructive. . . .

In the 1990s . . . mobility was still seen as a problem to be eliminated, not a trump card to be strengthened.

‘Livestock needs to be seen as an integral part of conservation and development in Africa, since transhumance may even be a necessary precondition to sustainable development in arid lands.

Recommendations

• Mobile pastoralism is not a “backward” means of livelihood—laws, policies and procedures should be considered backward, since they do not recognize the ecological and economic value of mobile pastoralism.

• A clearer understanding of common property regimes and a holistic analytical framework for pastoral development activities are also required . . . .

• The fundamental design principles related to managing institutions for mobility are nested property rights, fluid boundaries, inclusivity, flexibility, reciprocity, negotiation, and priority of use. . . .

• Resource holders need to retain authority to grant temporary use rights to secondary and tertiary users. . . .

• There has been strong momentum toward “co-management,” or systems of common property regimes that combine government decentralization with community participation. Though the approach is far better suited than any other to mobile pastoralism, it needs to deal with large-scale management of contiguous land.

• Management of livestock mobility also requires multiple institutions working at multiple spatial scales, authorities, and functions. To modify or create the institutional structure for a legitimate, locally controllable transhumance, the function—not just the structure—of new institutions must be addressed.’

Read the CAPRi policy brief on which this chapter is based: Niamir-Fuller, M. 2005. Managing Mobility in African Rangelands. In: Mwangi, E. (ed). Collective Action and Property Rights for Sustainable Rangeland Management. CAPRi Research Brief, International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, D.C.

Read the whole CAPRi sourcebook: Resources, Rights and Cooperation: A Sourcebook on Property Rights and Collective Action for Sustainable Development, International Food Policy Research Institute for the CGIAR Systemwide Program on Collective Action and Property Rights (CAPRi), 2010.

Read the whole news commentary by Jeffrey Sachs in Today Online: Famine and hope in the Horn of Africa, 2 Aug 2011.

Kenyans mobilize phone/web technologies to end famine: But can m- and e-philanthropy rescue the starving nomads in the north?

Posted on July 30, 2011 by Susan MacMillan

Mobile phone with money in Kenya (photo on Flicker by whiteafrican).

Kenya, which in recent years has built a reputation as an innovation hub—a nerve centre for young mobile and web developers—is making use of its new media technologies and platforms for dealing with an age-old problem of biblical proportions and resonance: a current drought and starvation now ravaging the Horn of Africa, including Kenya’s northern frontier districts of Turkana, Marsabit, Wajir and Mandera.

With its vibrant cell phone infrastructure and use, Kenya is home to illustrious tech start ups such as Ushahidi, a ‘disruptive’ non-profit tech company (‘ushahidi’ means ‘testimony’ in Swahili) offering open-source software and crowd-sourcing tools to better inform responses to crises; the iHub, a new nerve centre for mobile and web developers; M-PESA, a mobile money transfer system readily available to the poor and initiated by Kenya’s big mobile company Safaricom; Virtual City, which is producing software for small business in this poor country; and iCow, a mobile application that allows farmers to monitor the fertility cycles of their animals and pinpoint breeding windows.

Kenya’s new generation of tech luminaries includes Erik Herman, creator of Ushahidi who was raised and is now living in Kenya and writes the popular White African blog; Ory Okolloh, Kenyan lawyer activist and Ted talker and Ushahidi co-founder and new Google Africa policy and government relations manager; John Waibochi of Virtual City, a Kenyan mobile mega-entrepreneur whose company is pioneering mobile business management solutions for small traders and won the 2010 Nokia Innovation Challenge Award; Su Kahumbu Stephanou, of Green Dreams Ltd., who won first prize in an Apps4Africa Competition in 2010 and invented iCow; and Andrew Mude, a Kenyan from the country’s pastoral Marsabit District who is leading research on the first livestock insurance product made readily available to, and affordable by, Kenya’s remote livestock herders and who this year won Kenya’s inaugural Vision 2030 ICT Innovation Award.

But can Kenyans really use their new m- and e-philanthropy platforms to help rescue starving desert nomads in the northern frontier? Watch this space.

Below is some of the news coming out this week on how regular, tech-savvy, Kenyans are making use of the new mobile and web technologies to help their countrymen and women in Kenya’s remote northern drylands feed themselves in a great multi-year drought that has desiccated the pastoral lands, withering crops, finishing forage and killing camels, donkeys, goats, sheep and cattle alike.

Safaricom Foundation press release, 27 Jul 2011
‘The Safaricom Foundation and KCB [Kenya Commercial Bank] Foundation today led a coalition of corporate Kenya and media in launching a massive fund-raising effort aimed at reversing the suffering of an estimated 3.5 million Kenyans faced with starvation. Dubbed KENYANS for KENYA and intended to raise over Sh500 million, in four weeks. The initiative has brought together a number of organizations among them Safaricom Foundation, KCB Foundation and the country’s leading media houses operating under the umbrella of the Media Owners Association (MOA). The effort will be administered by relief agency Kenya Red Cross Society. . . . KENYANS for KENYA, touted as the biggest such effort ever mounted in Kenya, shall be co-ordinated on several fronts, including pledges from corporate society that will be made public during a meeting set for next Friday, August 5 at Serena Hotel. Also key to the campaign is the use of M-PESA, Safaricom’s money transfer service to receive donations. This will ensure that even the smallest donation (as low as Sh10) is harnessed, as this will go a long way in improving the situation of millions of Kenyans currently staring starvation and death in the eye. Donations can be sent to the M-PESA PayBill number 111111 at no charge as this has been waived. Donations can also be sent to account number 11 33 33 33 38 at KCB.

Capital FM News, 28 Jul 2011
‘The Kenyan media has already joined hands with the corporate sector to raise Sh500 million in the next four weeks for drought stricken Kenyans. The initiative dubbed Kenyans4Kenya which was launched on Wednesday has brought together Media Owners Association, Safaricom and KCB foundations among other organisations. Kenya Red Cross Society will manage the fund that will be used to purchase food relief to the drought stricken Kenyans. Donations can be sent through the M-PESA Pay Bill number 111 111 at no charge or account number 11 33 33 33 38 at KCB.’

Mashable, 30 Jul 2011
‘Like most major international crises today, Twitter is the go-to forum for Africans to discuss the situation on the ground. Users are asking for the international community to send aid to the starving region of the world’s poorest continent. The International Business Times reported twenty tweets per minute relate to the famine in East Africa, using the hashtags #HornOfAfrica, #Famine, #Drought, #Somalia, #Kenya and #Ethiopia. Groups such as Kenyans4Kenya, a campaign of Kenyans helping other Kenyans, have started to respond to calls.’

‘Kenyans4Kenya’ initiative on Facebook, noon 30 Jul 2011
As at 10:00am ksh we are at 47,502,973 can we hit the 50M mark before noon? yes we can. let’s do it.
about an hour ago via Facebook Mobile
Gladys Kamau Nimehesabika! BN78KK393! GO KENYANS!
I knew we could do without the politiians….infact they are an expense to us!
Polly Mbugua Now they must be scared – all attention has shifted to this noble act…..Can we continue giving them a black out? Media houses you can be again of great help.’

Kenya Red Cross Society on Facebook: 29 Jul 2011
‘HI GOOD PEOPLE, THANK YOU FOR CONTRIBUTING TOWARDS KENYANS FOR KENYA & FEEDKENYA INITIATIVES. . . . THERE ARE ONLY TWO INITIATIVES THAT KRCS IS RUNNING- THE MPESA NO FOR K4K IS 111111 AND FEEDKE IS 10000. THE KCB ACCOUNT IS 1133333338 ANY BRANCH. BY KRCS PR AND COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER, NELLY MULUKA. LET US CONTINUE ALLEVIATE HUMAN SUFFERING.’

Blog by Ahmed Salim: #FEEDKE social media campaign, 10 DAYS and Counting, 29 Jul 2011
After 10 days of full dedication to an initiative I started off with just one tweet has taught me a lot. . . . A campaign that is ongoing for more than a week with no offline help makes me proud to say Social Media is our future. . . . Do you realize for the 1st time Kenyans Online all over the world are doing something as ONE with ONE common goal?? The support im getting online on all social platforms just boosts my energy to ask for one more tweet – and you know what? WE WILL MAKE IT HAPPEN. I am NOT stopping as yet – together we will Feed Kenya. . . . Till date of this post we have raised Kshs.624,602.20/= from 1130 donors via Online, Mpesa and Airtel. We are all Kenyans and let’s keep everything else behind us today and stand proud to do something for this country – lets Unite and speak one language. . . . Kenyans WE can DO this together – We can show our strength as ONE – We can make a difference just as an individual. Your say counts, your participation counts, your heart counts and more your ACTION counts.
Sacrifice A Meal Today; Take pride, stand for Kenya and support FeedKE:
M-Pesa Paybill to ‘10,000’ Acc ‘feedke’
On Airtel nickname ‘REDCROSS’ reference ‘feedke’
Online: www.kenyaredcross.org
Ps: all funds are collected directly by the Kenya Red Cross Society and a report is available on request. . . .
My name is Ahmed Salim and I’m a Kenyan!!
May God Bless YOU and GOD BLESS KENYA!!!!

Magu Ngumo in an opinion piece in Kenya’s Saturday Nation newspaper, 30 Jul 2011
‘. . . Politics has overtaken agriculture as the mainstay of our national life. Even MPs from the famine-stricken parts of Kenya are not coming out boldly to rally support from the entire nation for their dying kith and kin. As recently observed by the world respected Special Adviser to the United Nations, Prof Jeffrey Sachs, Kenya has all the time ignored the early warning signs for its recurrent drought and resultant famine. How can the nation abdicate its cardinal responsibility of feeding its people and wait for the rest of the world to feed it? . . . The time for saving Kenyans who are dying of hunger is now. The war to save Kenyans from hunger should not just be left to the Government. It is every Kenyan’s war. . . .’

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If you’d like to donate to the famine victims through international organizations, here are eight of the bigger humanitarian agencies collecting money online:
CARE
Concern
International Rescue Committee
Oxfam
Save the Children
UNICEF
World Food Programme
World Vision

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A video production of Kenyan musician Eric Wainaina and children singing his popular Kenyan song Daima, is making new rounds in the social media. ‘Eric chose to work with Shangilia kids to make this video soon after Kenya’s post-election violence of 2007. The voices of the kids are mixed in with Eric’s original track. This patriotic song was used extensively to bring back sanity to a beautiful land that was rapidly consuming itself after the 2007 elections. The video is on Eric’s music video DVD called ‘Daima: The Music Videos’ that has been on sale for some time now.’ The Swahili lyrics and English translation of the chorus of Daima follow.

Lyrics of the chorus of Eric Wainian’s ‘Daima’ (‘Always’)
Naishi, Natumaini,
Najitolea daima Kenya,
Hakika ya bendera
Ni uthabiti wangu
Nyeusi ya wananchi na nyekundu ni ya damu
Kijani ni ya ardhi, nyeupe ya amani
Daima mimi mkenya
Mwananchi mzalendo

English translation
I live, I hope, I give myself for Kenya.
The certainty of the flag is my steadfast support.
The black is the people, the red is the blood,
The green is the soil,
The white is peace.
Forever I am a Kenyan,
A patriotic citizen.

Update: ‘Mapping Hotspots of Climate Change and Food Insecurity’

Posted on July 30, 2011 by Susan MacMillan

Map 4.4 Five percent reduction in crop season, sensitivity to change, capacity to cope (corrected) (map credit: CCAFS-ILRI/Notenbaert).

Last month the Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) program of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) launched a report showing global hotspots to climate induced food-insecurity, garnering significant media attention. Several weeks later, the authors, from the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), noticed two errors in the calculations, and so CCAFS immediately took the report offline for corrections. CCAFS issued an erratum that outlines the errors in the first version as well as in the press release. The errors are related to calcluation of population numbers, in one case the number of people at risk is underestimated, while in the other case the number of people most at risk is overestimated.

The press release stated that “there are 56 million food-insecure and crop-dependent people in parts of West Africa, India and China who live in areas where, by the mid-2050s, maximum daily temperatures during the growing season could exceed 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit).” The accurate number is 170.5 million. Why did this happen? The researchers miscalculated the population numbers (in this case the number of people affected) by a factor of about three. Therefore, the population number in the maps 4.4 through 4.12 are underestimated as well. Map 4.4 (above) was further modified to correct High and Low exposure categories (which had been reversed) What is the significance of this? The new numbers tell us basically the same story as our previous calculations, only that more, not fewer, people are likely to be affected by hunger and more extreme climates.
The press release stated that “there are 369 million food-insecure people living in agriculture-intensive areas that are highly exposed to a potential five percent decrease in the length of the growing period.” The accurate number is 265.7 million. However, the number in the two highest categories of vulnerability (HHL and HHH), goes up from around 607 million in the previous calculations to nearly 1 billion (999.8 million) in the current calculations.Why did this happen? The researchers mistakenly transposed the “high” and “low” exposure categories in the 5% map (4.4), which actually results in a lower number of people being most at risk than was stated in the press release.What is the significance of this? Our revised map shows the same basic message as our previous map, that large portions of India, West Africa, and China are predicted to be hotspots of both climate change and food insecurity.

Erratum: The corrected figures are now available for download (PDF).

Corrections to Press Release: Download the corrected press release in multiple languages at the CCAFS Press Room.

The final revised report is now available.

Livestock-based research recommendations for better managing drought in Kenya

Posted on July 18, 2011 by Susan MacMillan

Kenya: drought leaves dead and dying animals in northern Kenya (photo on Flickr by Brendan Cox / Oxfam).

Humanitarian organizations are bracing themselves for the the task of addressing the unfolding crisis in the drought-stricken Horn of Africa, where the rains have failed for two consecutive years and the next rainy season is not expected until September, at the earliest.

The BBC reports that in Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camp, to which starving Somali’s are fleeing at a rate of some 1000 a day, ‘at a makeshift cattle market in the middle of the refugee camp, herdsmen are trying to sell off what little livestock they have left.

‘But no-one wants to buy the cattle and goats on sale here, for the chances are that very soon they will be dead.

‘There is nowhere for them to graze: the pastures here are parched and arid, and it has barely rained for two years running.

‘”I’m selling my cattle at knock-down prices,” said one man. “I’m practically giving them away.”

‘Not far away, the landscape is littered with the carcasses of dead animals.

‘In this part of the world, livestock are everything: they represent a family’s entire assets, capital, savings and income. When the animals die, it frequently means the humans do as well.’

Read the full article at the BBC: Horn of Africa drought: Vision of hell, 8 Jul 2011.

All organizations involved in supporting these livestock-keeping peoples of the Horn are passionate about not only saving the most vulnerable members of these pastoral communities today, but also about finding long-term solutions to recurring drought in this region. Those solutions necessarily rely on an evidence base provided by scientists, particularly livestock researchers.

Four recent research reports published by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), based in Nairobi, Kenya, noted and linked to below, assess the effectiveness of past drought interventions in Kenya’s northern drylands and offer tools for better management of the region’s drought cycles.

(1) Leeuw, Jan de; Ericksen, P.; Gitau, J.; Zwaagstra, L.; MacMillan, S. Jul 2011. ILRI research charts ways to better livestock-related drought interventions in Kenya’s drylands. ILRI Policy Brief.

(2) Johnson, N. and Wambile, A. (eds). 2011. The impacts of the Arid Lands Resource Management Project (ALRMPII) on livelihoods and vulnerability in the arid and semi-arid lands of Kenya. ILRI Research Report 25. Nairobi, Kenya: ILRI.

From the abstract: ‘There is an urgent need for new approaches and effective models for managing risk and promoting sustainable development in arid and semi-arid lands (ASALs), especially in the face of climate change and increasing frequency of drought in many areas. This study assesses the impacts of the Arid Lands Resource Management Project (ALRMPII), a community-based drought management initiative implemented in 28 arid and semi-arid districts in Kenya from 2003 to 2010. The project sought to improve the effectiveness of emergency drought response while at the same time reducing vulnerability, empowering local communities, and raising the profile of ASALs in national policies and institutions. . . .’

(3) Ericksen, P., Leeuw, J. de and Quiros, C. 2010. Livestock drought management tool. Final report for project submitted by ILRI to the FAO Sub-Regional Emergency and Rehabilitation Officer for East and Central Africa 10 December 2010. Nairobi, Kenya: ILRI.

From the abstract: In August 2010, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) sub-Regional Emergency Office for Eastern and Central Africa (REOA) contracted the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) to develop a proto-type “Livestock Drought Management” (LDM) decision support tool for use by a range of emergency and relief planners and practitioners throughout the region. The tool, which is still conceptual rather than operational, links the concepts of Drought Cycle Management (DCM) with the best practice in livestock-related interventions throughout all phases of a drought, from normal through the alert and emergency stages to recovery. The tool uses data to indicate the severity of the drought (hazard) and the ability of livestock to survive the drought (sensitivity). . . . The hazard data has currently been parameterized for Kenya, but can be used in any of the REOA countries. At the moment, the missing item is good-quality data for sensitivity. Additionally, experts did not agree on how to define the phase of the drought cycle. The tool requires pilot testing in a few local areas before it can be rolled out everywhere.

(4) Zwaagstra, L., Sharif, Z., Wambile, A., de Leeuw, J., Said, M.Y., Johnson, N., Njuki, J., Ericksen, P. and Herrero, M., 2010. An assessment of the response to the 2008 2009 drought in Kenya. A report to the European Union Delegation to the Republic of Kenya. Nairobi, Kenya: ILRI.

In early 2010, ILRI scientists reviewed responses to Kenya’s 2008–2009 drought in six arid and semi-arid districts of the country. The authors reviewed 474 livestock-based interventions and came up with the following conclusions, recommendations and lessons regarding the drought management intervention cycle, among others.

The Early Warning Bulletins

Conclusion: . . . To allow sufficient time to scale up livestock based interventions . . . have early warning based on indicators that precede the deterioration of livestock condition, such as rainfall estimates or the greenness of rangeland detected from satellite imagery. . . . Recommendation: Include a separate early warning message in the EWB specifically geared towards triggering interventions aiming at livestock. . . . [Harmonize] procedures used among districts for such a livestock early warning system.

Timing of interventions

Conclusion: The timing of several of the interventions, notably destocking, was too late while vaccination was implemented during an inappropriate phase of the drought management cycle. . . . Recommendation: Strengthen capacity to plan the implementation of each intervention type in view of the phase of the drought management cycle.

Effectiveness and appropriateness of interventions

1 Water tankering and borehole support

Conclusion: Water tankering and support to boreholes were considered effective [but] repair to water infrastructure can be done in periods of reduced stress. . . . Recommendation: Maintain boreholes and other water infrastructure during periods of reduced stress in order to increase drought preparedness.

2 Destocking

Conclusion: An estimated 16,996 TLU [tropical livestock units] were purchased or slaughtered in response to the drought in the 6 study districts. This is higher than the 9,857 TLU were purchased in 2000/1 in 10 districts (Aklilu and Wekesa 2001), but far below what would have been needed. Slaughter destocking interventions . . . were considered more effective than commercial destocking . . . . Recommendation: Make use of existing commercial livestock marketing infrastructure and on site slaughtering to destock during drought. To achieve optimal impact, initiate these interventions early on in the drought management cycle. See chapter 7 and annex 5 commercial destocking workshop section for further recommendations.

3 Health

Conclusion: Over 5.7 million animals were reached by health interventions between July 2008 and December 2009. De-worming was considered effective and appropriate, while vaccination was not. Recommendation: Increase de-worming during drought as it keeps animals in better condition for longer. Restrict vaccination at middle or end drought as it might create mortality with animals in poor body condition

4 Forage and supplements

Conclusion: The provision of feed was far too little and poorly coordinated, overall it was considered among the least effective interventions. . . . It is worthwhile to consider developing hay production and fodder markets locally. Recommendation: Promote initiatives to develop local hay production, fodder markets and strategic fodder reserves.

5 Migration and peace-building

Conclusion: Peace building interventions were generally considered effective; 30% more animals migrated in 2008/9 than in 2000/1. Disease problems reduced effectiveness, which suggests that interventions around these issues should be part of future migrations. Recommendation: Access to disputed land as part of pastoral mobility remains paramount in their coping strategy and more effective means to support this are required. This includes GoK commitment to play their role but specific interventions can be designed in the short and medium term to alleviate this problem as well.

6 Livelihood implications

Conclusion: . . . Interventions that build on and support local livelihoods and link to longer term development are better than purely emergency ones. Recommendation: Build on and strengthen rather than undermine local institution, livelihood strategies and coping strategies.

7 Community involvement

Conclusion: Despite recommendations from past assessments, few interventions involved the community in design or implementation. Those that did tended to have better outcomes than those that did not. Recommendation: Involve communities before the drought in the design of drought contingency plans.

8 Triggering of interventions

Conclusion: As yet there are no agreed upon triggers for the release of contingency funds. Furthermore access to these funds is often delayed due treasury related constraints. Recommendation: The drought contingency plans should be regularly updated and contain agreed upon quantitative triggers for the release of funds to implement interventions. Creation of a sufficiently endowed national drought contingency fund deserves the highest priority.

9 Climate change adaptation and drought interventions

Conclusion: There is a danger of duplicating efforts already implemented under the drought management strategy and it is advisable to implement climate change adaptation through these existing institutional arrangements. Recommendation: Implement climate change adaptation policy through existing institutional mechanisms aiming at better drought cycle management.

Among the more generic lessons learned are the following

The continued implementation of a basket of suitable preparedness activities remains the most cost effective approach to reduce the impact of shocks.
. . . Emergencies of this nature . . . are increasingly caused by a basket of factors whereby reduced access to previously accessible high-potential grazing is the single biggest contributor to stress. This is heavily exacerbated by a relentlessly increasing demographic pressure, thus creating a cadre of the population who have limited access to any livestock at all and who are consequently extremely vulnerable to shocks.
The most effective interventions remain those where facilitation to access grazing and watering resources, which had hitherto not been accessible, was made accessible.
Increased semi-permanent presence of key non-governmental organizations in critical areas which are able to encompass a realistic drought management cycle approach has substantially improved information and speed of response. This, in combination with a vastly improved collaboration between agencies, together with improved coordination has at face value provided improved response in both quality and timeliness. The net impact of this is however largely negated due to other factors such as reduced line ministry capacity and related administrative/institutional developments such as the relentless creation of new districts and conflicts. . . .
So-called commercial de-stocking remains the least cost-effective intervention. Distance, timing and economies of scale play an important role but more than anything else the lack of a dynamic and lively existing marketing system in many places virtually precludes the creation of a commercial de-stocking operation that will have the required impact at an acceptable cost.
‘Livestock-fodder-aid’ comes a close second whereby substantial quantities of bulky commodities such as hay are shipped to some of the furthest locations at huge costs with very little if any measurable impact.
Slaughter-off take, preferably carried out on the spot with meat being distributed rapidly to presumed needy families is popular with beneficiaries and . . . can have considerable benefit on nutrition while maintaining a limited purchasing power of those affected.

In Nairobi, German Chancellor Angela Merkel puts on lab coat, meets young bioscientists fighting hunger in Africa

Posted on July 13, 2011 by Susan MacMillan

Lydia Wamalwa talks with German Chancellor (and former scientist) Angela Merkel at ILRI-BecA labs (photo credit: ILRI/Njoroge).

Yesterday (12 Jul 2011), Lydia Wamalwa, a PhD student from the International Potato Center doing her research at the Biosciences eastern and central Africa (BecA) labs at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), gave Chancellor Angela Merkel an overview of her research to improve the resistance of sweet potato to the sweet potato weevil, a pest that causes major losses to this, the third most important food crop in eastern and southern Africa.

Apollinaire Djikeng, BecA’s technology manager, introduces BecA, which is hosted and managed by ILRI, to Chancellor Merkel (photo credit: ILRI/Njoroge).

On the same lab tour, the Chancellor also heard from Appolinaire Djikeng, a Camerounian bioscientist who is BecA’s technology manager.

Djikeng explained that ILRI established BecA in 2006 with the New Partnership for Africa’s Development and funding from Canada. BecA provides state-of-the-art laboratory facilities to African scientists conducting research on the continent’s biggest food production problems.

In its first 5 years of operation, Djikeng said that BecA has:

strengthened biosciences capacity in the region and trained hundreds of young African agricultural scientists;
generated productive collaborations between dozens of scientists working in Africa with other experts working in Germany and elsewhere in Europe, in North America and in Asia; and
convened donor representatives, agricultural scientists and civil society leaders in dozens of high-quality meetings to identify research gaps and ways to close them.

‘You’re now standing in BecA’s crop research laboratory,’ Djikeng said. ‘Many institutes have recently relocated their agricultural research programs here to take advantage of BecA’s resources, unique in sub-Saharan Africa.’

Among the international teams hosted by ILRI-BecA are those leading work on:

cassava, banana and yams (IITA [International Institute for Tropical Agriculture], based in West Africa)
sorghum, millet and other cereals of drylands (ICRISAT [International Centre for Research in the Semi-Arid Tropics], based in India)
potato and sweet potato (CIP [International Potato Center], based in Peru), and
drought-tolerant maize for Africa (CIMMYT [International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre], based in Mexico).

One of BecA’s trainees, Rachel Aye, then told the Chancellor about how German support and BecA facilities are enabling her to advance development of a vaccine against a disease that is ravaging the livestock of Africa, including in her country, Uganda.

Djikeng and Aye thanked Chancellor Merkel on behalf of all their colleagues for making this historic visit and for her country’s longstanding support of agricultural research for development.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel visits ILRI’s campus in Nairobi, where agricultural scientists are fighting hunger

Posted on July 13, 2011 by Susan MacMillan

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, German Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner, and Carlos Seré, director general of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), at ILRI’s campus in Nairobi, Kenya, 12 July 2011 (photo credit: ILRI).

Chancellor Angela Merkel of the Federal Republic of Germany visited Kenya today (Tue 12 Jul 2011) as the first part of a three-day, three-nation, African tour.

This morning, in the presence of the Chancellor, Merkel’s ambassador to Kenya, Ms Margit Hellwig-Boette, signed an agreement between Germany and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), which is headquartered in Kenya. The signing ceremony was part of a press conference given by Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga at Nairobi’s Intercontinental Hotel.

Germany has been one of ILRI’s top donors for many years, contributing more than USD11 million in just the past six years.

The new agreement Germany and ILRI signed launches a project Germany is funding in Kenya to be led by ecology researchers at ILRI and local partners in Kenya. The study will assess the state of Kenya’s ‘eco-conservancies’, which strive to benefit both Kenya’s wildlife and the pastoral people who have been stewards of wildlife in this country for centuries. The study will examine the benefits accruing from the establishment of these eco-conservancies in terms of both wildlife conservation and poverty reduction among Kenya’s pastoral communities.

Following the signing ceremony, attended by ILRI Director General Carlos Seré and ILRI’s Director of Partnerships and Communications Bruce Scott, Chancellor Merkel attended a State luncheon given by President Mwai Kibaki, to which ILRI’s director general was also invited. Chancellor Merkel then proceeded to the University of Nairobi, where she gave a keynote address.

Later in the afternoon, the Chancellor paid a visit to ILRI’s campus, in Nairobi’s Kabete suburb. Chancellor Merkel was met by ILRI Director General Seré, who welcomed her with a few remarks, noting in particular the key role science can play in helping the world feed its growing human populations.

‘Our challenge over the next four decades,’ said Seré, ‘is to feed another 2 billion people, nearly 1 billion more people in Africa alone, from the same or smaller resource base. As a scientist,’ Seré told the Chancellor, ‘I’m sure you appreciate how important research is to rising to the global challenge to feed the world sustainably.’

The ILRI director general then described the benefits of ILRI-German partnerships over many years in diverse fields, from climate change adaptation to carbon sequestration schemes to vaccine development, all conducted in Kenya; to increasing water-use efficiencies on mixed crop-livestock farms in the Nile Basin; to forestalling parasite drug resistance in West Africa; to ensuring safe milk, meat and egg production and marketing in southern Africa.

Seré concluded by requesting the Chancellor’s help in raising awareness in Germany and elsewhere of the importance of science in helping this continent to become food secure.

‘Please tell your listeners that science partnerships in this matter matter,’ said Seré.

‘Only through such partnerships will we manage to tackle the world’s increasingly complex development problems.’

Chancellor Angela Merkel making a few remarks at ILRI (photo credit: ILRI).

Chancellor Merkel than made a few remarks to the ILRI and diplomatic communities assembled outside ILRI’s new greenhouse.

After this, ILRI’s Carlos Seré and Bruce Scott led the German Chancellor on a tour of a few of ILRI’s advanced biosciences laboratories, where Merkel spoke to several scientists about their research on the crops and farm animals that are the mainstay of poor people throughout the developing world.

ILRI Director General Carlos Seré and German Chancellor Angela Merkel at ILRI (photo credit: ILRI).

The afternoon ended with ILRI’s Carlos Seré thanking the Chancellor for taking the time in her busy schedule to see at first-hand some of the high-quality and relevant science being conducted in Africa to solve some of Africa’s most intractable agricultural problems.

World Bank president says it’s time to push the CGIAR agricultural research agenda

Posted on July 7, 2011 by Susan MacMillan

Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank (image on Flickr by International Monetary Fund).

Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank, spoke today (6 July 2011) at the 40-year-anniversary celebrations of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) at the World Bank in Washington, DC. His presentation followed a film about the historical beginnings of the CGIAR, including interviews of Norman Borlaug and Robert McNamara.

‘Both Norman Borlaug and Robert McNamara believed that it is possible to defeat hunger,’ Zoellick said. ‘They both worked to boost food production through science. And they both died within a few months of each other in 2009.’

Zoellick said that agriculture is a subject of strong personal interest for him; he grew up around farm families in the American midwest. And he said few things were as satisfying for him as speaking to farm families that had doubled, tripled or quadrupled their incomes through improved farm practices, which in turn rely on agricultural science.

Zoellick said that high food prices today are pushing 44 million people into poverty, and the global population is expected to reach 9 billion by 2050.

‘We’ll have to increase food production by 70% to feed everyone by mid-century,’ he said. ‘And we’ll have to do that with the rate of production increases dropping and in the face of climate change, which is predicted to decrease crop yields in Africa by 28%.’

Zoellick reported on some of the great achievements of the CGIAR over the last four decades. Among them, he cited the following work by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and its partners, including the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute.

There is now a vaccine for East Coast fever, which kills 1 cow every 30 seconds in 11 countries of Africa. The vaccine is expected to save more than a million cattle, with benefits worth up to USD270 million a year in the countries where the disease is now endemic.

‘I’ve been urging the G20 to put food first this year,’ said Zoellick. ‘One of my key messages at both G8 and G20 is the need to support agriculture and agricultural research.

“I see a 5-step challenge for the CGIAR,’ said Zoellick.
(1) Donor agencies increase funding to the CGIAR from USD670 million last year to USD1 billion by 2013.
(2) Donor agencies commit to multi-year predictable funding.
(3) Research institutions place greater focus on research to reduce post-harvest food losses (which can make up 20–50% of yields).
(4) Developing countries themselves increase their investments to agricultural research and development.
(5) Researchers and their supporters stand up for science and fight the current trend of cloaking ignorance in fashionable causes.

The moment is right to push the agricultural research agenda, Zoellick said. ‘The agricultural sector is fertile for innovation. And we can demonstrate the intimate links between this work and two of the big issues of our day—food security and climate change.’

Given the ammunition, he said, he’ll push this agenda forward.

The CGIAR hits 40: 1971-2011

Posted on July 6, 2011 by Susan MacMillan

Established in 1971, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) hits 40 this year. A 40th-anniversary celebration is being held today, 6 July 2011, from 9:15 to 11am EST at the World Bank, in Washington, DC.

The collaborative work of the CGIAR has resulted in development impacts such as improved crop varieties and livestock breeds, better cropping and crop-livestock farming methods, pro-poor policy shifts and associated new knowledge. These products are made freely available to all stakeholders in development.

The CGIAR gleaned a set of 40 largely quantitative findings on CGIAR impacts since its inception in 1971 from a 2010 Food Policy journal article written by Mitch Renkow of North Carolina State University in the USA and Derek Byerlee, a former adviser in the World Bank’s Agriculture and Rural Development Department and co-author of the World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development.

The study noted that for every US$1 dollar invested in CGIAR research, $9 worth of additional food is produced in developing countries.

The economic benefits of the CGIAR as a whole were estimated to range from about $14 billion to more than $120 billion. Even under quite conservative assumptions, the benefits of research have been roughly double the investment.

Importantly, in addition to its direct research impacts, the CGIAR has trained some 80,000 professionals in developing countries.

Among the set of 40 beneficial impacts of the CGIAR cited are two related specifically to livestock research conducted by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), which is supported by the CGIAR, and its partners:

The production and delivery of a vaccine for East Coast fever—a tick-transmitted disease that threatens some 25 million cattle in 11 countries of eastern, central and southern Africa—is being placed in the hands of private sector partners. It is expected to save more than a million cattle, with benefits worth up to $270 million a year in the countries where the disease is now endemic.

Research and advocacy aimed at decriminalizing the marketing of milk by small-scale vendors in Kenya created benefits for producers and consumers having an estimated value of $44–283 million.

Read the program of the event celebrating the CGIAR 40th anniversary on 6 July 2011, which includes an address by Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank.

Watch live webcasting of the event beginning on July 6 at 9:15am EST.

A tribute to the heroes of small-scale food production

Posted on June 16, 2011 by Susan MacMillan

Watch ILRI’s new 4-minute photofilm, A tribute to the unsung heroes of small-scale food production.

A hitherto disregarded vast group of farmers—those who farm both crops and livestock—hold the key to feeding the world in coming years. Most of the world’s ‘mixed’ farmers are smallholders tending rice paddies or cultivating maize and beans while raising a few animals. A research report led by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) indicates that this group is likely to play the biggest role in global food security over the next several decades (see ILRI Corporate Report 2009-2010, ‘Back to the Future: Revisiting mixed crop-livestock systems’). This photofilm celebrates these ‘unsung heroes’—both the mixed farmers themselves and their farm animals.

Some of our readers will remember that last year a perspective piece by ILRI was published in a special February 2010 issue of Science on food security, “Smart Investments in Sustainable Food Production: Revisiting Mixed Crop-Livestock Systems”, focused on the importance of the same smallholder mixed farmers.

This article was based on results of a study by the Systemwide Livestock Programme of the CGIAR Consortium.

Small farms that combine crop and livestock production supply much of the food staples (41 percent of maize, 86 percent of rice, and 74 percent of millet), as well as most of the meat and dairy products consumed in these countries.

The billions of dollars promised by the international donor community to fund small-scale agriculture farming are likely to fail unless policies are reoriented towards these ‘mixed’ farmers.

The pressures of climate change and finite resources, as well as the increasing demand for milk, meat and eggs across the developing world, will require proper planning, looking beyond ‘business as usual investments,’ and a greater ‘intellectual commitment’ to understanding food systems in the developing world.

Read more on this topic in ILRI’s Corporate Report 2009–2010: Back to the Future: Revisiting Mixed Crop-Livestock Systems, 2009.

Or visit the CGIAR Systemwide Livestock Programme website.

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